BIRCHANGER
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales...., by John Marius Wilson. circa 1866
BIRCHANGER, a parish in the district of Bishops-Stortford, and county of Essex; on the Eastern Counties railway, 2 miles NE of Bishops-Stortford. Post-town, Bishops Stortford. Acres, 1,051. Real property, £2,050. Pop., 358. Houses, 86. The property is divided among a few. An hospital was founded here, by Richard de Newport, in the time of King John. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £218. Patron, New College, Oxford. The church is good.
Transcribed by Noel Clark
KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF ESSEX 1933
BIRCHANGER is a parish on the borders of Herts, near the junction of the roads from Bishop's Stortford to Dunmow and Saffron Walden, 1¾ miles from Stansted station on the London and North Eastern railway, 2 east-north-east from Bishop's Stortford, in the Saffron Walden division of the county, hundred of Uttlesford, Bishop's Stortford county court district, Stansted rural district, Walden petty sessional division, Newport and Stansted rural deanery, Colchester archdeaconry and Chelmsford diocese. A stream runs through the parish. The church of St. Mary, is a small building of flint with stone dressings in the Roman and Early English styles, and consists of a chancel, nave, north aisle and a stone turret containing one bell: the north aisle was added in 1898, from designs by Sir Arthur Blomfield and Sons, at a cost of £750: the church contains a handsome oak reredos, with painted panel, erected in 1901 by the family of Sir Charles Gold, in memory of a brother and sister: the south doorway is in its original state and is considered to be a very fine specimen of Norman architecture: the south wall was restored in 1927: modern heating apparatus was installed in 1928: there are 180 sittings. In the churchyard is a memorial of parishioners who fell in the Great War, 1914-18. The register dates from the year 1688. The living is a rectory, net yearly value £355, with glebe and residence, in the gift of the New College, Oxford, and held since 1931 by the Rev. Bertram Henry Meeres B.A. of Clare College, Cambridge. The farmers are the principal landowners. The soil is clay and loam; subsoil, clay. The crops are wheat and barley, the area is 1,066 acres; the population in 1931 was 781.
Post & Tel. Call Office. Letters through Bishop's Stortford, Stansted is the nearest M. O. & T. office